Evers to push back closure of Lincoln Hills by 2 years

The Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake prisons are now set to close by 2021, per a law passed unanimously through the Legislature last year and signed by then-Gov. Scott Walker.

Republican Rep. Michael Schraa says Evers administration officials said in a Tuesday meeting the current timeline wasn't workable. Instead, Schraa says Evers will propose moving closure back by two years, to 2023, a change the Legislature would have to approve.

The prisons, north of Wausau in Irma, would be replaced by smaller, regional facilities many of them run by county governments.

The prisons have been subject of a federal investigation into inmate abuse for four years and subject of multiple lawsuits.